


nobody else but us

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Justice League - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, Zack Snyder's Justice League - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Post-Snyder Cut, Post-Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 22:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30129480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “Would you rather I leave?”“No,” Bruce says, without thinking. It’s too fast, he realizes belatedly. The look on Clark’s face says as much.“Okay,” Clark says. Like it’s really that easy.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 28
Kudos: 259





	nobody else but us

**Author's Note:**

> YES i watched the snyder cut at dawn this morning YES i wrote this asap after work YES it's sloppy NO i don't care i NEED THIS

Bruce is most of the way asleep when he hears the knock.

It should startle him more than it does, but, at first, he thinks he’s still in bed. It takes a moment for him to realize he fell asleep in the Batcave, and an additional moment to understand that  _ nobody _ should be knocking on  _ any  _ doors in the Batcave. Alfred just walks in wherever he likes, and nobody else has access.

Bruce has a batarang in his hand in a second. He notes the door that received the knock — the glass one, near the stairs to the house. Silently, he rises to his feet.

Despite the fact that he hasn’t made a noise, the person says, “I know you’re there,” then, more quietly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— That sounded rude. I just meant I already could see you.”

Bruce knows that voice. At this point, he thinks, he knows that voice more intimately than anybody else’s.

“Superman,” he says. He sets the batarang down on his desktop again. “Clark. I mean.”

Clark pushes in the glass door and comes the last few steps into the Batcave. While Bruce watches, he leans back to gently push the door shut until it clicks. It’s a little disorienting, to watch someone he’s seen shatter cement with a flick of the wrist close a glass door more gently than Dick ever did.

“Either one’s fine,” Clark allows. He smiles like they’re meeting up for coffee and Bruce mispronounced his name. Bruce isn’t sure if he’s just exhausted or if Clark just wants to pretend everything’s normal.

Regardless, Bruce is too tired to keep that up. He asks, “Do you prefer Superman over Clark?”

Clark seems taken aback by the question. He starts to answer instinctively, then stops, looking down at his shoes. This time, he smiles in a different way. It feels more real this time, but also— caught out. In his own way. Bruce assumes it’s the corn-fed Kansas kid in him.

“I don’t,” Clark tells him. “But I also find it’s just easier to let people make their own assumptions about me.”

The way he says it makes Bruce feel like most people laugh off comments like that. It does the opposite; it makes Bruce want to hold up a mirror so he could make Clark see just how empty saying things like that makes him look.

“You’re still a man, Clark,” Bruce reminds him.

Clark moves again. He moves like a man, Bruce notes, even though he’s more aware than ever that Clark is not one. It’s difficult to watch anyone do what Bruce has seen Clark do and still consider them a man. Still, though. The more Bruce gets to know Clark, the more he believes that Clark knows more about being human than everyone Bruce knows combined.

When Clark comes to a stop, his soft footfalls hushing as he halts beside Bruce’s desk, he still seems a little hesitant. He tells Bruce, “Of all the people I’d expect to say that to me, you know, you’re not at the top of the list.”

That one stung a little. Bruce is sure it wasn’t supposed to, but it does all the same, and Bruce is sure he’s earned that.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce tells him. He steps backwards from the desk just to give Clark some space, make him feel like he’s not so boxed in. Clark, however, shifts towards him without even seeming to think about it. He even leans into him a little.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Clark says. “I was just teasing you.”

“Is that what you’re doing here?” Bruce asks. “Teasing me? You came all this way to tease me when you could be— I don’t know. With Lois, maybe?”

Clark raises an eyebrow at him. He doesn’t comment on that, not at first, pushing away from the desk to pace to the lab table across the way. It’s something Alfred was working on, but Clark isn’t studying it with a critical eye. His gaze skims over everything there and keeps going until he’s just tapping his nails on the metal tabletop, staring at nothing.

“I don’t really want to be with Lo right now,” Clark says. He taps his nails down again before looking to Bruce. “Would you rather I leave?”

“No,” Bruce says, without thinking. It’s too fast, he realizes belatedly. The look on Clark’s face says as much.

“Okay,” Clark says. Like it’s really that easy.

“You don’t have to stay,” Bruce tells him. “If you don’t want to. Don’t make me feel like you have to.”

Clark sighs. He seems like he rolls his shoulders, almost, but then he looks up to the ceiling.

“You know,” Clark tells him. “I don’t think that, uhh…” He trails off, then stops. Bruce is intensely curious and wants to prod him, but he’s worried. He feels like Clark gently closing that glass door: a little too much force and everything can just break so easily.

After a moment, Bruce says, “I’m sure you do.”

Clark takes a moment before he gets it, but he does huff a laugh. He runs a hand through his hair, displacing it from the windswept comb it had before, before he tries again, “I don’t think that you were wrong earlier.”

Bruce can’t help frowning. “Wrong about what?”

“When you brought me back,” Clark tells him. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not— I’m not so self-centered that I believe I deserved to come back—”

“You did,” Bruce cuts him off. “You do. Deserve it.”

Clark pins him with those piercing blue eyes of his. They’re not glowing or anything, they haven’t gone red, but they feel shockingly warm all the same.

“I—” Clark starts, then stops. “Thank you.”

“You don’t—”

“I just want to say thank you,” Clark tells him, “And that you weren’t wrong earlier. I think… When I woke up, the first thing I heard was you saying my name.”

Bruce leaves the desk and its batarangs behind to follow Clark to Alfred’s workstation. He considers pretending that he doesn’t know what Clark means, but he thinks he remembers it as clearly as Clark must, if not clearer. He remembers acting on instinct; it hadn’t been a conscious or calculated choice, but an automatic one. Trying to stop him not by shouting to him or fighting him or calling for Superman, but just by begging for Clark to stop.

“Clark,” Bruce says again. It’s the same as before, but— different. Clark smiles at him again.

“It’s funny,” Clark tells him. “You brought me back, and I…” Clark stops. He studies Bruce’s face for a second. Bruce wonders, distantly, if Clark has to fight not to see his bones when he does things like that. If Clark sees  _ through _ him instinctively, if he has to work to just look at Bruce’s face and not any deeper. “When I hit the sunlight, I thought of a million places I wanted to see again. A million people I wanted to visit. But, when I got right down to it, there was only one place I wanted to be more than anyplace else in the world.”

Bruce feels his brain screech to a grinding halt before instantly kicking back up and working faster than it’s ever worked before.

“Smallville?” Bruce asks. He wants to kick himself.

Clark laughs. “No. I stayed with Ma for a while, but she needs to get back to her normal life, too. Can’t just sit around staring at me all day.”

“I can’t blame her,” Bruce tells him. Clark looks at him curiously, brow furrowing. For a bewildering moment, Bruce thinks,  _ There’s time enough to let him find out everything, _ and wonders when he ever started thinking things like that about men like Clark.

“I’m sorry,” Clark says, even though he doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for.

“I lost my son,” Bruce tells him. Clark exhales. “You don’t have to—”

“Bruce,” Clark says. His hand lands on Bruce’s shoulder; before he knows it, Clark is turning them into each other, pulling Bruce in for a tight hug. Bruce can’t even move for a second, frozen by surprise and hesitation. When he processes Clark’s arms around him, though, he shifts and holds him back before Clark can think to pull away.

“Thank you, Clark,” Bruce says, still too close. He can’t bring himself to let go of Clark yet, but Clark hasn’t moved to release him, either.

“This must have been hard on you,” Clark says. He finally lets Bruce go, but he only shifts back a single step, maybe an extra half a step. “I didn’t even think— Bruce, I am  _ so _ sorry.”

“Jesus Christ, don’t apologize,” Bruce tells him. “I needed you back. You know, we, I—” Bruce motions with a general hand motion, sweeping the air. “The world. Needed you back.”

Clark nods once. His eyes fall to the table for a moment before his attention flickers back up to Bruce, like he just can’t look away. Bruce understands the feeling.

“There was nowhere else I wanted to be except here,” Clark says. He makes the same hand motion Bruce just did. When Bruce can’t help the small smile that quirks his lips, Clark smiles in return. “With you, I mean. Wherever you were.”

“Why?” Bruce asks.

“I don’t know,” Clark answers. “I honestly don’t have an answer to that, Bruce. I’m sorry. I just wanted to see you real bad.”

Bruce fights back the instinctive urge to flee the room. Instead, he says, “You still sound like you’re from Smallville. You must be the real deal.”

Clark laughs. He holds his arm out, flannel sleeves rolled up past his elbows. “You can pinch me, if you want. I’m alive.”

“And still a hick,” Bruce reminds him. Clark’s still grinning, arm between them; Bruce takes his wrist in his hand and feels for his pulse. After a moment, Clark catches on and raises his eyebrow at him. Satisfied, feeling Clark’s heart racing in his veins, Bruce obliges and pinches the thin skin at the inside of Clark’s wrist. Unsurprisingly, he makes no mark. “Still alive.”

“Still alive,” Clark agrees. Bruce releases his wrist. “Y’know, this all feels a little backwards. I feel like we were supposed to make nice  _ before _ you went and brought me back from the other side and all of that.”

Bruce frowns at him. Clark’s still smiling. “So, you want to be friends?”

Clark laughs. “Yeah, Bruce. I guess I want to be your friend.”

“Oh,” Bruce says. “Well, I— Uhh. Sure.”

Clark grins again. It’s disarming, especially this close. It’s actually almost disorienting, to try and reconcile the concepts of Superman and Clark Kent into one person— the person in front of him, no less. The entire world has been mourning Superman for a month, and they’ve only had him back for a couple of days. Every news station in the world has Superman’s face on it, singing his praises like he’s God risen again. Just around them, Clark has been spread thin between the different Justice League members and his mother and Lois and— whatever else Clark does in his personal time. Bruce doesn’t pretend to know all of it.

Regardless, everybody in the world wants a piece of Superman right now. And yet, here he is, dressed down to his jeans and flannel, standing in front of Bruce Wayne in what could essentially be considered his basement. It’s not the place Superman should be.

“Bruce,” Clark says again.

It’s the place Superman  _ chose _ to be, however.

And Bruce is not about to take Clark’s choice away from him again, not after last time.

“What do friends do?” Bruce asks. Clark really laughs, this time, clapping Bruce on the upper arm and steering him towards the stairs.

“Friends hang out, Bruce,” Clark says. “Not that I’d know, to be honest. I don’t have many friends of my own. Really, I— To be honest, I’ve never really had any friends ever.”

“That’s one thing we have in common, then,” Bruce says. At the foot of the stairs, Clark hesitates, one step up, then turns back to Bruce.

“We have more in common than that,” Clark disagrees with him. Bruce frowns up at him. “We do. I think we, uhh…” Clark trails off. He smiles again, that blindingly delighted smile, and tells Bruce, “Sorry, I lost my train of thought there. Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a handsome face?”

“What?” Bruce asks. Clark’s smile slips a fragment, like he missed a step before he gathers himself.

“I didn’t—”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Bruce hurries to say. He can feel it all slipping through his fingers already, he thinks, and he adds, “Yeah, people have told me that before.”

Clark laughs. “Humble.”

“I like to stay honest,” Bruce says.

“Would you mind if one more person told you that?” Clark asks. “That you have a handsome face?”

“Jesus, Clark,” Bruce tells him. He can feel a laugh of his own in his chest; he’s missed the feeling. “Is this how you put the moves on other kids back in Kansas?”

“Not that it worked all that often, but, when I got the chance, yeah,” Clark says. “Why? Is it workin’ on you?”

Bruce feels warm inside. It’s terrifying; part of it is terrifying just for it  _ being _ so terrifying. This is supposed to be normal.

Then again, this  _ is _ Superman. And he  _ is  _ Batman. None of this will ever be exactly normal.

“Remember how you mentioned doing this all backwards?” Bruce asks.

“Ahh,” Clark says. He takes one half-step up the stairs. “Friends first?”

Bruce reaches up and tugs him back down with a hand wrapped in Clark’s flannel, secured over his heart. He doesn’t hesitate before he pulls Clark in the rest of the way and kisses him, craning his head back to accommodate for Clark’s extra height up on the stairs.

Clark kisses as bright as he laughs and smiles. Bruce wants a lot more of all of it, warm and wrapped up in it now as it is. It’s overwhelming and dangerous and exhilarating, all at once. He’s always like an edge of danger in his love, and there’s nobody more dangerous than Superman. Nobody  _ less _ dangerous than Superman, either, Bruce thinks he might believe.

When they separate, Clark takes a moment where his eyes stay closed, just for a second, lingering there before he lets them slip open again. He meets Bruce’s eyes as if on instinct, not a beat missed, and leans in to kiss him again.

“Thanks,” Clark murmurs against his lip, halfway through the second kiss. Bruce huffs a laugh, withdrawing.

“You’re welcome,” Bruce says.

“For letting me go a little out of order,” Clark explains. “I’m still a little—” He motions near his head. “I’m not really tactful yet.”

“Only if you’re sure,” Bruce tells him.

“I am,” Clark says, and he kisses Bruce again like it’s the truth. Bruce kisses him back — acts on faith.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) comment to chat with me, or talk with me about this fic, on Twitter at [@nicole__mello](https://twitter.com/nicole__mello) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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